The invention relates to a device for the mass transfer and/or energy exchange between two media, particularly between blood and a gas/gas mixture, the device comprising a chamber through which the first medium flows and in which at least one mass and/or energy-permeable hollow fiber is disposed, preferably a plurality of mass and/or energy-permeable hollow fibers are disposed, through which a second medium can flow and around which the first medium can flow.
Generic devices of this type are used, for example, in medical technology, and there in particular in applications for blood purification, such as dialysis, blood separation or also artificial lungs (oxygenators).
In the field of application of oxygenators, it is provided to this end that the blood as a first medium is allowed to flow through a chamber, in which at least one mass and/or energy-permeable hollow fiber is disposed, or in a preferred embodiment a plurality of mass and/or energy-permeable hollow fibers are disposed, through which the second medium, in this case particularly oxygen, can flow and around which the first medium flows.
If in this version blood originating from the body of a living being and aerated with CO2 is pumped through the chamber, the different partial pressures of oxygen and CO2 on the two sides of the mass and/or energy-permeable hollow fiber produce a mass transfer in the sense that CO2 is removed from the blood and the same is oxygenated with oxygen from the hollow fibers. In this way, such a device can operate as an artificial lung and assume, for example, the lung function of a patient, either partially or also completely.
Insofar as an oxygenator, i.e., an artificial lung, is described in more detail in this specification, it shall not be interpreted as a restriction, but only as an application by way of example. The device according to the invention described below can in principle be used for the mass transfer and/or energy exchange between arbitrary media, and not only in medical technology, but also in other industrial applications.
In order to achieve adequate and defined flow rates of a first medium through the afore-mentioned chamber, in particular of the blood through the chamber, external pumps are required. In the range of applications of the oxygenators, this means that in addition to the generic device an external pump must be provided, which is used to ensure that blood is pumped from the body of a patient through the device and then back into the body of the patient. In this respect, the body of a patient shall denote both the body of a human and that of an animal patient.
When looking overall at the generic devices and the externally employed pumps, this principle mentioned above causes a significant volume which must be filled by the first medium, in this application the blood, for example.
Particularly with babies, and specifically premature babies, who have a very low blood volume, at times less than 100 milliliters, this means that the generic known devices cannot be employed, or great stress is caused to the organism of a baby by the addition of donor blood, blood plasma, or plasma expander, in order to be able to fill the volumes of the known devices. Furthermore, the use of such generic known devices is also possible only outside the body of a patient due to the additional pumps.